Lars Jakob Rudjord's Arpeggio

Seems like things have been quiet in Norway lately--only three new releases from 2L Recordings and nothing from personal favorites Lars Jakob Rudjord or Ingvild Koksvik in quite some time--until now. Lars has just released a new EP, Arpeggio, just in time to celebrate Nils Frahm's Piano Day 2019, a global celebration of that particular instrument. As Lars explained to me, Arpeggio is "a little more conceptual this time," with three versions of the same composition named "Warpeggio," "Harpeggio" and "Arpeggio." As you might imagine, all three variations are derived from the same basic structure, obviously an arpeggio. Lars takes this delicate, simple theme and does what he does best, creating a hypnotic study that highlights both his stunning Scandinavian influences and the inner workings of his piano.

The latter element is one of the things that draws me deep inside of Lars' recordings--I've never heard another pianist who is so generous in showing off the mechanics of his instrument. That means you not only hear the pedals and the soundboard and the sound of his fingers on the keys, but you can also hear the hesitant way his ideas pour out and the thoughts that occur in his head just milliseconds before the note is played. You can sense it in the way he phrases these patterns, the way he makes each pass slightly different than the last.

In other words, these are three variations of the same piece that flow together as one single evolving composition. On his last release, Indiepiano, Lars excelled at being both intimate and a little icy around the edges--I can't help but think of Norway when I hear his music. "There's a minimalism at work here, reminiscent of the '80s, where Lars keeps the main piano melodies slow and deliberate and pleasingly repetitive," I wrote in that review. "It's the quiet textures that he subsequently adds that really dig out the contrasts." While I feel that Arpeggio is representative of that work, and these three variations could have been included in that release without sounding out of place, there a new step here that Lars has taken.

It all comes down to introspection, a motif I hold close and dear to my heart. Sometimes I feel nervous in recommending Lars Jakob Rudjord's work to friends because it is so light and beautiful that the deeper layers aren't noticeable at first. Where this music perseveres is in the almost invisible connections that are made in your synapses, the complex emotions that emerge through the simple melodies. (His wife Ingvild is able to accomplish this as well.) There's no doubt that Lars creates music that is simply beautiful, but it's up to you to explore and discover the hidden treasures.

You can listen to Arpeggio via your favorite streaming platform, or by visiting his website.

Ingvild Koksvik's New Single "Sommerflukt" on Spotify

Lars Jakob Rudjord came out with a single just a couple of months ago, so it makes sense that Ingvild Koksvik would follow up with one of her own. This one's called "Summerflokt," and it has more of a pop feel than her recent work, but plenty of her beautiful, original voice. You can here it on Spotify by clicking here.

Ingvild Koksvik's Songs From the Deepest Sea

There's a flurry of activity in Farsund, Norway these days. Just a couple of weeks after I blogged about Lark Jakob Rudjord's Pharos,a new single featured on all the streaming services, singer Ingvild Koksvik has released a new digital EP featuring three of her songs from her last album, sung this time in English. Lars confirmed this for me in an email exchange a couple of weeks ago, but I accidentally stumbled onto Songs From the Deepest Sea while browsing through Tidal this morning and reminded myself to check it out.

Og sangen kom der havet, Ingvild's last album, is a beautiful and hypnotic experience. One of the biggest reasons I fell in love with it was hearing her sing these Norwegian lyrics with such emotion and conviction that I felt like I didn't need an English translation. As I mentioned in my review for Positive Feedback Online, Ingvild supplied translation in the liner notes of the album, but I avoided them because I loved the hint of mystery. And now we have the English versions...will that mystery vanish?

Of course not! It's thrilling to hear her English vocals because they ground her voice--for an English-speaking fan like me, anyway. When I listen to Ingvild in her native Norwegian, she sounds like a beautiful, fleeting spirit. Hearing her sing "Song From the Deepest Sea," "Something Better" and "Mathilda's Lullaby" in English radically changes the mood of the music--a layer of meaning is both added and subtracted. It's almost like I'm hearing her voice for the first time, as if she's in the room with me. This might be a completely personal impression for one reason--Ingvild and Lars occasionally send me messages, and their English is perfect. (This is true, of course, of most Scandinavians.) And there's a slight disconnect between these perfectly normal conversations and the gorgeous, exotic Nordic music they make. Maybe I'm just a little starstruck by these two.

Now, Ingvild has supplied a bridge for me. The mystery has lessened, but the meaning is now more in focus. The music is still just as beautiful, but now I understand even more. Above all, I feel like I know her voice a little more because of this.

Ingvild and Lars pretty much take turns when it comes to releasing my favorite albums of the year, so hopefully these smaller projects are hinting at full albums to come. But now that I've flung myself into digital streaming, it's a genuine treat to be able to hear the in-between projects, the creativity and the direction these two are taking.

You can hear Songs from the Deepest Sea on Tidal and right here.

Lars Jakob Rudjord's Indiepiano on LP

My review of Lars Jakob Rudjord's spectacular new LP, Indiepiano, is now live at Positive Feedback. You can read it here. Enjoy!

Lars Jakob Rudjord Ensemble's Clockwork on CD

I really, really like this album a lot. Period. End of review.

I think a few other reviewers have made this joke at least once or twice, and it usually comes after they've heard an album that they like so much that they simply don't want to write about it. It's just too difficult, too personal, to put all those feelings and emotions into mere words and sometimes it takes some time and distance to make sense of what you've just experienced. It's easy to write about something you dislike, especially if you're being paid to critique it. The good stuff, however, is a real challenge because you're not responding to objective elements of the music, you're just making the right synaptic connections in the pleasure center of your brain and now you gotta meet some deadline. But I'll still attempt to tell you why Lark Jakob Ensemble's Clockwork is so up my alley.

When I think about the music I truly, truly love, it's not made up of ornate flourishes and virtuoso performances. It's made up of precise yet beautiful melodies, carefully measured yet constantly in a state of flux. (Think Philip Glass or Michael Nyman, but less repetitive.) While this music can be gorgeous and lush in a mainstream way, there still has to be something there to challenge me, to remind me that I'm not listening to elevator music or another mindless Top 40 hit. It can be dissonant as long as it evokes some sort of fluid imagery for me--if you're going to make noise, it has to take me somewhere. But ultimately it has to create an emotional bond in my brain. I know most people could probably care less about my idea of perfect music, especially since there's really no such thing, but at least I'm on the record.

Little did I know this modest perfection could be contained within a unique trio that consists of a piano, a cello and a double bass. I almost said jazz trio, which wouldn't be necessarily incorrect because pianist Lars Jakob Rudford, cellist Katrine Schiott and bassist Adrian Fiskum Myhr bill themselves as such. Perhaps they're focusing on the improvisational aspect of jazz, but my take is that these ten fascinating song-length pieces are closer to classical impromptus, and to go one step further I'd mention that the aforementioned precision of the songs are not really improvisations or impromptu at all. Perhaps the final word is the album's single-word title, which is far more aligned with the moods presented here.

Rudjord does weigh in on his website, expressing that while his roots are in jazz, his music is also part of "The Nordic Sound," something exemplified by recordings such as The Hoff Ensemble's Quiet Winter Night on 2L Recordings. He states that "I grew up on the windswept Lista peninsula on the southwest coast of Norway, and in many of the songs you can probably feel a whisper of wind, a strip of light or a glimpse of the landscape here." Lars even sent me a postcard from Lista to emphasize the point.

Here's another synaptic connection I've made while listening to Clockwork; I've often that that if I'd been a musician, I would have been the kind who would always insert disparate and surprising elements, such as exotic instrumentation, in order for each song to rise above the ordinary. In many ways this album follows that template--just when things get a little too pretty and familiar, something appears to break it all down and assemble a new whole, a new perspective. That new element can be something as simple as a bow, nervous and heavy against string, making those surreal and cinematic swirling noises that prompted a guest to ask me, "Why are we listening to horror film music?" Or it can be something relatively complex, such as a couple of autoharps being strummed in unison, along with the piano, into an earthy harmonic structure not unlike Meryl Streep's simulated "dial tone" in the film Adaptation. You're not going to necessarily recognize the sounds coming from these three gifted musicians, but they are achieved with honesty.

The story of how I stumbled onto this wonderful, wonderful recording is also interesting. My Norwegian friend Trond Torgnesskar, who sent me the beautiful Ingvild Koksvik LP I reviewed last July, told me he'd be sending me more great-sounding contemporary Norwegian music since I enjoyed Nattapent so much. "It is by Lars Jakob Rudjord, Ingvild's boyfriend, and the guy playing piano on her record," Trond told me. Clockwork, like Nattapent before it, was released by Fyrlyd Records, a label with a reputation for great sound. Indeed, this album was recorded "at IsitArt Studios in the deep Swedish forests." Don't you want to hear Clockwork for that reason alone?

I'll tell you what--I'm probably going to bring this CD with me to every trade show I attend. It's just that great of a demo disc, with amazing sonics and intriguing music. I'll be at CES in Vegas next month, so just ask me to play it for you. It's already late November, so I'm sure I'll be asked for my top ten favorites of 2014 for the Perfect Sound Forever year-end round-up. Unless something even more amazing appears in my mailbox in the next couple of weeks, this is my pick for the best thing I've heard this year.